December 2011

Many people head to the pawn shop during the holiday season, selling their valuables for cash to afford gifts for loved ones. But one man in Holland, Mich., loaned something priceless -- his Purple Heart. In November, a serviceman on leave went to the A-Z Outlet in Holland, a pawn shop owned by Bryan VandenBosch, and sold one of his two Purple Hearts. He earned them after he was wounded while serving in Afghanistan, the Holland Sentinel reported. "He was falling on hard times," VandenBosch told the Sentinel. "He said the same thing everybody else who comes in here says.